


summer nights

by whitenoise17



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fight Training, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, but you could read it as pre-slash i guess, no plot just vibes, randomly chosen title, talking about feelings while refusing to actually talk about feelings, this isn't really slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:13:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29186109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitenoise17/pseuds/whitenoise17
Summary: Scott trains with Derek, even though he isn't going to join Derek's pack.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Scott McCall
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	summer nights

Every evening when the sun shines at a certain angle through the trees, an old, cracked window on the front of the Hale house turns white and blinding with reflected light.

Usually, it blinds Scott. In fact, Scott is pretty sure it had blinded him every day he’d trained with Derek for the whole summer.

Until today, when he remembers to turn away from the window just as the sun starts to set.

This time, Derek is looking straight into the light, and Scott takes advantage of that half-second he’s distracted to get in one good punch.

Not that even a great punch would have much of an effect on Derek Hale, but you do what you can.

Derek hits back, of course, and that most certainly has an effect. Scott just hopes he hasn’t fractured his jaw—again. It only took a week to heal last time, but it hurt almost as much as getting shot.

The next blow comes whistling in from Scott’s right, and he ducks left. Derek must have predicted that, because he’s ready with another fist, but Scott manages to block with the palm of his hand, in a surprisingly effective gesture for what basically resembles meeting a fist bump with a high five.

“Good,” Derek says, just a little out of breath. Better than nothing, Scott thinks, although he’s about ready to collapse with exhaustion and Derek has barely broken a sweat. “That’s what I want to see from my pack.”

Scott inhales. Exhales. Chooses his next move. They’ve had this argument before, more than once.

He dodges another hit, this one aimed at his ear, and half-lands one on Derek in return.

The sun keeps setting, turning the trees, the fallen leaves, even the burned-out shell of a house to gold.

“You can’t have me, Derek.” Scott tries a kick, one that doesn’t come all that close to connecting. “Not the way you want me.”

He doesn’t see the blow to his midsection coming until it knocks the air out of him. And he’d hoped he was getting better at this.

At least the sun is setting, and Scott can make a pretty convincing argument for not fighting in the dark.

He’s losing focus, and Derek catches him across the jaw again for it. Scott feels his eyes start to change with the pain and the frustration. His fingernails grow a little longer, a little sharper, and his teeth poke at his gums.

“Control it, Scott,” says Derek quietly. He steps away, letting Scott breathe as he reels back the wolf. As he fights his own fight. “You got it?”

“I’m good.” Scott’s voice only cracks a little. “Hit me again.”

And then Derek does, and then Scott hits him, and the rhythm of the fight is familiar, almost comforting.

“Look,” Derek starts, without slowing the tempo of his movements. “I don’t really understand why you’re so against it.” Punch. “We want the same thing, almost all the time.” Block. “You need me and—on occasion—I need you.” Dodge. “It makes sense that we’d work together.”

He’s made this case too many times to count by this point in the summer, and Scott has argued it just as many: it’s not working together, it’s Scott working for him; they don’t want the same thing, has Derek forgotten about Jackson?; Derek will always want Scott to leave his friends, no matter how much he says he doesn’t care. Scott isn’t in the mood to go over it all again.

Which is probably good, because Derek isn’t actually done talking this time.

“I’m not going to make you. I couldn’t if I tried. It’s your decision, Scott. Understand?”

Scott nods, half a smile on his face. Maybe they are getting somewhere, out here fighting under the trees day after day, after all.

Derek throws a punch towards Scott’s right, resuming their training session suddenly, and Scott just barely manages to dodge it. He’s half a second too late to do the same when Derek kicks at his left side, and the contact throws him off balance. He feels himself start to fall backward, senses heightened as he loses control of his stance.

Derek, too, is unbalanced from the kick, and in that split second, Scott reaches out, grabs the front of Derek’s shirt, and takes him down with him.

Scott falls flat on his back, landing hard on the forest floor. Derek braces his fall with his forearms, inches above Scott, their legs still tangled together from when Scott tripped him.

“You miss shots more often on the left,” Derek tells him.

Scott had the wind taken out of him in the fall, and he nods, panting.

He’s suddenly aware of Derek’s body on top of his, of being trapped. He could fight his way out. Or try to, at least.

But he doesn’t.

“Good work today,” Derek says, rolling off him. Scott stays on his back amidst the dirt and the leaf litter, trying to catch his breath.

Apparently training is over for the night, because Derek starts gathering his things and stashing them in his car. Scott wonders where he’s living now, if not here or the old train station, but he doesn’t ask. It’s not like Derek would tell him, anyway.

When Derek finishes with the car, he walks over and offers Scott a hand. Scott lets himself be pulled off the ground. He brushes a few dead leaves out of his too-long, ready-to-be-cut hair.

“You got anything you need me to look at before I leave?” Derek asks, holding up a roll of gauze. Scott does a mental check. Bruises, minor swelling, but no open wounds.

“Nothing that won’t heal by tomorrow,” Scott says. Tomorrow, when he’ll get a whole new set of bruises. “Can you give me a ride home?”

It’s a little embarrassing that he can’t get himself home, but his mom took the car to go grocery shopping, and it’s quite a walk. Besides, it’s not like he hasn’t embarrassed himself in front of Derek before.

Derek pops the passenger door open silently before getting in the driver’s seat. That probably counts as a yes, Scott thinks to himself as he follows Derek into the car.

“Thank you,” Scott says as Derek pulls out of the makeshift parking spot in front of the charred Hale house. He’s mostly trying to break the silence; Derek never even plays music in the car. “For the ride, and for helping me train. Even though I won’t join your pack.”

Derek doesn’t say anything, but he gives Scott a look that he would have thought was anger six months ago. He knows better now. 

It’s the look Derek gets when someone says something nice to him and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

They drive through Beacon Hills in the falling dusk, listening to the wheels on the road. The shadows gather at the edges of town, and the tires roll on towards home.

Derek drops Scott off a block from his house, like always, because otherwise Melissa will intercept him and make him stay for dinner.

Scott walks the last few yards home, ribs bruised and jaw aching, thinking idly about how different his life is from what it was last summer.

He spent a long time wishing he could go back to the way things used to be.

Now he isn’t sure whether, if he had the chance, he would take it.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written/posted anything in 3.5 years and I make my comeback with a fic no one will read, about a ship I don't know how people feel about, for a show I started watching to make fun of... cheers y'all


End file.
